Confinement
by Catgirl Kleptocracy
Summary: I didn't think anybody else noticed, or if they had they didn't pay it any mind, but she missed the lever. Her hand was gone. I knew then she hadn't been an amputee for long.  Miki's Route
1. Chapter 1

**Confinement**

**Act I, Scene I: Driving the Nails**

When I realized, she was opening a door. Class had just ended. She wasn't the first one out—the girl with the burns beat her to the punch, and the door latched shut behind her before anybody else had even left their seats—but she wasn't far behind. While she didn't look frightened like the other girl, she marched towards the exit like she would rather have been anywhere else. Then she froze. I don't think anybody else noticed, or if they had they didn't pay it any mind, but she missed the handle. Her arm went up like it should have, and it came back down, but it fell about an inch short of hitting the lever. Her hand was gone. She tried to play it off, and worked the handle with what was left of her wrist. As she walked through she thrust her stump into her pocket. I knew then she hadn't been an amputee for long.

"Hiichan!" I didn't have to turn to know it was Misha's voice, but I still had to look to see who was actually talking. Misha's hands were signing as she spoke. The words were hers. "Have any plans after class?"

She was grinning. Shizune wasn't. The two stood in stark contrast. Misha's pink hair was styled into all sorts of curls. At a glance it didn't look like she took a whole lot seriously, and she could bring down a building with her voice. Shizune was always business. She looked like she'd fit in at a corporate boardroom. Her dark hair was cut short, and her glasses seemed to magnify the intensity in her eyes. She was also mute. "I haven't thought that far ahead yet," I said.

Shizune began signing. "_Perfect. Misha and I are going to grab a snack before we get to our student council work. You're more than welcome to join us. For the snack, that is." _Then she smiled too.

While I wasn't hungry, I didn't have anywhere else to be. The rest of the class seemed nice, but I hadn't really met any of them. "Sure. That actually sounds pretty—" It was only my third day at Yamaku Academy, and I wasn't sure if I could consider the two more than acquaintances, but I'd already figured out their shtick. They'd come to me after class to see if I wanted to hang out. We would. Then they'd try to rope me into student council. I wasn't sure I wanted that. "Wait, you're not trying to—"

"Of course not, Hisao!" Misha said, feigning offense. "How could you even…" She paused for a moment, like she knew what she wanted to say, but didn't know how to sign it. "Insinuate?" Her fingers flashed, and Shizune nodded. "Insinuate that we'd ever think about doing such a thing?"

They both smiled the kind of smile that says, _oh, yeah, you can totally trust us! _I knew it was a trap. I still couldn't say no.

We stopped off at the cafeteria and bought slices of pie. It was cherry. I moved to grab us a table, but Shizune stopped me. "_It's a bit crowded in here, don't you think?"_

I looked around. We weren't the only group in the room, but there were plenty of open tables. "Not really."

_"Yeah, it's too crowded to enjoy our pie. Let's find somewhere else to eat."_

Somewhere else ended up being the student council room. I knew I was going to end up there eventually anyway, so I didn't fight it. The walk there was silent—it was difficult for Misha to sign back and forth while walking through crowded hallways—but they made me carry the slices anyway.

"Cherry's my favorite!" Misha said. She took the biggest slice from my hands and grabbed a seat. The first bite was in her mouth before I could set the other two slices on the table.

"I've always liked apple," I said.

Shizune nodded. "_I'm with Hiichan on this one."_ The translation was muffled by the food Misha was eating. For a moment I wondered if that meant Shizune was talking with her mouth full.

When I laughed I tried to pass it off as agreement. "You've got good taste, Shizune."

Misha ended up laughing with me. She knew how ridiculous she sounded. Shizune didn't catch on, though, and she lifted her hands to respond. She only made one sign before Misha's phone rang.

Misha pulled her phone out of her bag, pointed to it, and nodded towards the other side of the room. I was pretty sure it wasn't standard sign language, but the message seemed to translate well enough. Shizune waved her off, and Misha stood to take the call.

It was awkward, but Shizune and I watched as Misha spoke into the phone. There wasn't going to be much conversation between just the two of us. As much as I would have loved to chat with her personally, we would never connect without an intermediary. It was disappointing. The thought was also a little discomforting.

Thankfully Misha's call didn't last long. Something looked wrong, though. Her smile had faded. She turned to Shizune and they signed back and forth. I didn't get a translation. Halfway through they both turned to look at me, but the break only lasted a moment before they continued. When their hands stopped, Shizune adjusted her glasses, and Misha sighed. They were back in business mode. "_I'm sorry, Hiichan."_

"I have a feeling I'm being put to work."

"_That was the nurse on the phone. Tainaka was scheduled to assemble part of our class's stand for the festival this afternoon, but her wrists are bothering her again and she's been sidelined."_

I tried to remember Tainaka's face. The name was familiar, but I couldn't remember who it was. "Is it serious?"

She shook her head. "_But it leaves us in a bind. A replacement worker was found. Normally it would be a one person job, but under the circumstances…"_

Misha picked up where she left off. "We could use someone to lend a—" She stopped herself. "To help."

It wasn't like they were trying to get me to join the council. They even seemed apprehensive about asking me to do it. Maybe they thought I'd take it the wrong way. "I'd be happy to."

Seeing their relief spill out was worth it. Misha giggled, and Shizune's signs were bouncier than usual. "_She's in the art room. The art club isn't meeting today, so you won't be disturbing anyone. Everything you'll need is already there."_

"I'll hop to it then." I hadn't gotten the chance to eat my pie. That was fine—they'd take care of it for me. "See you two later."

The art room wasn't far, but I still had to navigate the stairwell to get there. I was surprised that I was looking forward to the job—or at least meeting another classmate. It would be a relief to finally know some people other than Shizune and Misha. They were cool girls, but I'd made myself a bubble, and after the hospital I didn't want that. As I neared door I heard someone working inside. There were two loud clangs. They were followed by a soft thud, and then a yelp. "Goddammit!"

My heart skipped a beat, then pumped faster. I almost fell through the door. If I'd ended up missing the handle, I would have knocked myself out running into it.

The girl on the other side was clutching her foot. She was still holding onto a hammer in her good hand. The other ended in bandages at the wrist. She looked up when I entered, and I tried to remember her name. Long black hair. A boy's dress shirt instead of the girl's blouse. Skin a few shades darker than average. One hand. "Miura?" I was pretty sure that was it. "Are you alright?"

She was still wincing. It looked like she'd been trying to nail a plywood sign to another board. She would have had to hold the nails in place with her feet. "It's Miki. Don't be so stuffy." She seemed more concerned about her name than her foot. "And yeah, I'm good," she said, almost as an afterthought.

I stood there for a moment as my heart slowed down. She'd let her foot go, but it looked like it hurt. If it did, she wasn't paying attention to it. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"That board's going to be the top front of our festival stand," she said, pointing to the thicker one on the bottom. "I'm trying to get the sign we made to stick on it. I painted it yesterday, Ritsu was supposed to nail it on today, but she's down for the count."

I looked at the sign. Some other classmates had gotten together to design it. It didn't look like their outline. The lettering was the same—flat black. The background was completely different. Originally it had been divided into three sections, with red on either side and yellow in the middle. Miki had painted the whole thing one color. "You like green?"

She cocked her head as if it was an odd question. Then she shrugged. "Yeah. It's a cool color, you know? Chill."

"Never really thought about it like that." Art was never my thing. I couldn't draw or paint to save my life. I tried picking it up after my heart attack, but I gave up when even my stick figures were mutants. The green background of the sign was plainer than the original design, but I didn't think that was bad. It'd be a lot less confusing to look at.

"So what brings you here?" she asked.

"Same as you, I guess."

She looked at my arms. "I mean to Yamaku."

For a few seconds I wasn't sure how to answer. Most people in the school weren't so forward about asking what my disability was. Only that Rin girl had asked me straight out. But I'd answered her. That had been in the art room, too. There must have been something in the paints. "My heart."

Miki held up her arm. "My hand." She gave a halfhearted smile. "What do you think of it?"

I told her the truth. "I'm really not sure what to think yet."

"Getting used to the area?"

"Actually I haven't been off campus yet. I would, if I can get somebody to show me around."

She let her eyes drift back to the hammer. "Unfortunately that's not me," she said. "I uh…" She looked back up. The smile was gone. "I just started at the beginning of the year."

I was right. Her injury was recent. Our eyes met, and we froze for a moment in empathy. Then the moment passed. "Take this," she said, handing me a box of nails. "All you have to do is hold them in place. I'll take care of the rest."

Her foot was still fresh in my mind. Images of her swinging the hammer down on my thumb kept me from grabbing a nail. "Are you sure? I mean, I could just take care of it."

"Where's the fun in that?"

I wanted to tell her the fun was not getting my fingers crushed. I didn't want to alienate a classmate before I even knew her, though, so instead I drew a nail and held it in place, praying her aim was better than before. The blow didn't come.

When I glanced, I saw she was looking at me again. "What is it?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"You look like you have something on your mind. What is it?"

I shook my head. "No, it's nothing."

She didn't raise her eyebrows, but I could see in her eyes that she didn't believe me. "It's alright," she said, more quietly than before. Somehow it felt like she knew what I was going to say. "I won't be mad."

She wouldn't take a denial. Part of me felt she really wouldn't care what I said. Of the people I'd met so far, she was by far the most laid back. On the flip side, her change in tone told me she didn't believe what she said as much as she wished she did. I didn't have anything else to go on, though, so I nodded to her hand. "I'm glad you still have your right."

Her expression didn't change, and she held her stare for a good five seconds before turning her attention back to the nail and raising the hammer. "I was left handed."

All in all, things didn't go too badly. By the time we finished, I'd only been hit four times. I didn't count the glancing blows. We had just sat back to admire our work when there was a knock on the door. "Hiichan!" Misha's voice called. "Miki! We're coming in!"

I heard them walk in behind us. "It took some work," I said, "but it didn't turn out too shabby."

It wasn't until I turned my head that I realized something was wrong. They were inspecting the job, and their lips were pursed. Miki seemed to notice too, but she just rolled her eyes and looked out the window. Misha and Shizune started signing. After a brief back and forth followed by a short pause, Shizune signed again. "_It was supposed to be red and yellow."_

"I don't like red," Miki said, without looking away from the window. "It's kind of aggressive."

"_That's the point. We want the sign to draw people's attention."_

"And green doesn't?"

Shizune's hands were flying. She was picking up speed with every sign. "_Not like red. Or yellow. We came up with that design as a class. You can't just change it on your own because you don't like it. That's selfish and irresponsible. It's the class's stand, not yours. If this were a one-time deal I'd consider it a misunderstanding, but it's become a pattern. Do it over."_

"But—"

Shizune didn't need to sign anything more. Her expression was enough to end the debate.

"Yeah," Miki said. Her voice had gone quiet again. "You got it."

Misha and Shizune stood there long enough to make sure that Miki really had gotten her point. When Shizune was satisfied, they turned to leave. Misha gave a sympathetic nod before following out. Then they were gone.

Miki and I sat in silence for a while. Shizune wasn't known for mincing words, and if she believed what she was saying she didn't sugar coat. Her lecture must have hit hard. It also didn't sound like the first time Miki had heard it. I almost expected her to start crying. Instead, she laughed. "That girl signs like a motherfucker."

At first I wasn't sure I'd heard her right. She sounded more like one of the guys than a girl. If I'd ever heard Iwanako talking like that, I'd have ended up in Yamaku Academy a lot sooner than I did. "Yeah, Misha was having a hard time keeping up with her."

"I meant what she was saying." She must have seen something in my expression, because she waved me off. "No, don't get me wrong," she continued, "I like her. She's actually not too bad. Maybe a little uptight, but cool enough. At least when she's not on one of her student council kicks."

"That's good to hear."

"Yeah."

There was another awkward silence before I stood to grab the paint cans. "I'll take care of the red if you do the yellow."

I didn't get an answer right away, and saw she was still looking out the window. It was just a view of the campus commons. There didn't seem to be anything special about it. "Nah."

"Hm?"

With a sigh, she hoisted herself off of the floor and walked towards the painting supplies. "You get out of here. I got this covered."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I brought it on myself anyway. See you later."

"Sure."

I didn't want to leave her with all of the work, but she seemed intent on doing it herself. Did she see it as repayment? Maybe she just didn't want to leave. With the way she'd been looking out of the window, I doubted that. Whatever it was, I'd let her run with it. I turned to leave, but she stopped me before I made it to the door. "Hey, Hisao?"

When she said my name I realized I hadn't introduced myself when she'd given me her name. She must have remembered my introduction from class. "Yeah?"

"Was she right?"

It was almost like a professor calling on me and asking questions about a book I hadn't read. I didn't know Miki well enough to know how to answer. Tell her the truth? Yeah, Shizune was right. But recently I'd learned the hard way that the truth usually sucked. Nobody ever really wanted to hear it. "I don't think it really matters. She's got the final say on these kinds of things. We just kind of have to follow orders."

It was political. Weak. And if it felt weak coming out, it must have sounded weak going in. "Hm."

The conversation was over. I knew I would spend the rest of the night thinking about what I should have said instead. I might have even come up with something good. Maybe even only an hour or two too late. "I'll catch you later."

She waved with her back turned. "Fosh."

I didn't know what that meant, but I nodded anyway and walked to the door.

When I grabbed the handle I wondered what it would be like to reach out for something and find a part of yourself missing. To try depending on something that wasn't there anymore. It wasn't something I wanted to think about for very long.

Turning the lever, I opened the door and walked into the hall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Act I, Scene II: Working Man**

Emi was killing me. Somehow she and the nurse convinced me to go running every morning. I was never a bad runner, but months in the hospital and a bad heart left me weak. It took everything I had to run half a mile. Two laps didn't even give Emi a sweat. She kept pushing me, though, and by the time we finished our routines my chest felt like it would explode. Eventually it probably would. Emi was going to kill me running long before I graduated. I went to the festival with her anyway.

Despite being number one on my list of potential man slaughterers, I liked Emi. She was nice. Her dietary plan wasn't. When I thought about festivals, I thought of friends and fireworks. Mostly I thought about food. Going to one with Emi was like being institutionalized—even more so than I already was. All I wanted was some teriyaki. She wouldn't let me have it. We ate healthy instead, and I'd learned at a young age that there was a bold line between 'healthy' and 'tasty'. I'd yet to find a food that I'd call both.

After we ate we decided to find Rin. We knew where she'd be—her mural. Emi and I set off to meet her, but she stopped me before we left the campus commons. "Hey Hisao," she said, "Isn't that your class's stall?"

She was pointing to a booth on the main path. Its sign was red and yellow, and it read 'Soup'. I'd heard Lilly's class was selling soup, too. I doubted it was a coincidence. "Yeah, that looks like it."

"Rin isn't going anywhere. Want to check it out real quick?"

I didn't. It wasn't that I disliked my class. I liked them just fine. It was my muscles. They were sorer than I could remember them ever being, and I had a feeling that if I walked up to our stall I'd be put to work. "Actually I think Rin—"

Emi grabbed my arm and pulled. I found my vote didn't count for much when I was with her. "Let's go!"

There was a line at our stall, but it wasn't very long. It didn't take more than a few seconds to see why. There was only one person working behind the counter. It was Miki. She was running back and forth between the cooker and the counter trying to grab cups and bowls, and she had to place them down before she could pour the soup in. She could only carry one of them back to the customers at a time. It was like watching a crane game at an arcade. Her arm would go down, it would come up with a bowl, and she'd drop it on the counter to pour. She didn't drop the soup bowls as much as the crane games dropped stuffed animals, though; in the time we were in line she only lost one bowl.

I thought about stepping in to help, but she didn't strike me as the kind of person who would want it. If she had, she would have gotten somebody long before she'd started hitting her foot with that hammer when assembling the sign, and she wouldn't have told me to leave when she was told to repaint it. The aching in my legs probably played a part in my decision making too. Would that have stopped me before my stay in the hospital?

She greeted us when we stepped up to the counter. Her school uniform had been switched out for a T-shirt and jeans. I wouldn't have minded seeing her in a dress, but she looked good. The shirt was black, and while it wasn't skin tight, it clung closer to her body than her uniform. Her shoulders were broader than her usual slouch let on, and she had a bit of muscle on her. Most of the girls I'd known before had been slight, and Iwanako had been skinny as a rail. Miki must have been an exercise nut. I wondered if she was a diet fundamentalist like Emi, but I doubted it. "You want two, or are you going to share?" she asked.

I was about to tell her we weren't eating when Emi scoffed. "Like I'd eat anything you touched."

I'd never heard anything mean out of Emi—I hadn't thought she was capable of it—but she was leaning forward on the counter, and her eyes were narrowed.

Miki rolled her own eyes and shook her head. "Probably a safe move," she said, matching Emi's stance. Her hand was resting flat on her hip, but her elbow was cocked back like she was going to throw a punch. "If I knew I was serving it to you I'd spit in it anyway."

Emi leaned closer. "You would spit. When will you stop being such a little bitch and start swallowing?"

I glanced around to see if there were any customers in earshot. Emi and I were the only two in line. I wasn't sure what was going on between the two of them, but it needed to stop. I'd never broken up a fight before, but I couldn't stand by and watch.

Before I could drive a wedge between them, Miki smirked. Then they both laughed. The hand at Miki's hip made a fist, and Emi bumped it when she put it forward. "What's up, Emi?" She nodded up in my direction. "Hisao?"

Emi looked at me like she expected me to answer. I was still trying to figure out whether or not I needed to stop a fight. It was clear they weren't enemies. In fact, they looked like good friends—just shit talkers. Emi was competitive. It was one of the first things I noticed about her. Seeing her butt heads with a friend made sense. But Miki seemed too laid back to talk trash. Then again, she also seemed too mellow to be hitting the gym. Maybe 'mellow' and 'lazy' weren't the same. "Not much," I said, trying not to stammer.

The girls laughed, and Emi patted my shoulder. "Miki's on the track team," she said, as if reading my mind. "We like to pretend we're competitors sometimes. Not really sure why, though. She's slow as Hell."

Miki bit her lower lip to hide a smile and shook her head. "Then how come the only time I ever see you during a race is when I look behind me?"

"Because I'm about to lap you."

Miki gave a shrug that could only say _oh, well that makes sense. _She turned away when a man and his son stepped up to the booth. They only ordered one bowl. When they left, she leaned back up against the counter in front of us. "Emi tells me she has you running."

It was another surprise, but a nice one—they'd been talking about me. "Every morning," I said.

She shuddered. "No way I'd ever get up that early. Especially not to run."

I couldn't blame her. The early mornings were agony, and I'd thought about ditching out on them. "It's not so bad. Once you get moving you start to wake up."

"That's what Emi always says. Not sure I trust her on that one."

"Then why not come sometime and find out yourself?"

Miki stopped to think for a moment before answering. I could see her eyes trace me up and down, as if her answer had been written on my shirt. Then she shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Nice try, Hisao," Emi said, "but nothing's going to get her on that track before noon. I take the mornings, she takes the graveyard shift. With the rest of the team running in the middle, we're keeping that track going from dawn to dusk."

She was being modest. We were on the track a good deal before dawn, and I imagined Miki didn't actually run before dusk. "That's good though," Miki said. "That she has you running, I mean. Stick with it. She's a good coach."

Emi beamed, and while everyone called her the star of the track team, I could tell she didn't often get straight praise from Miki. It dawned on me that their shit talking wasn't just fun and games, but a showing of respect. You had to have a high opinion of somebody before telling them you were going to spit in their food or jokes about swallowing became compliments. I couldn't recall ever having a friend like that. Somehow I felt like I'd missed out. "Yeah, she is."

Miki smirked, and when I looked at Emi I saw why. She was blushing. After taking a moment to try to recover (and failing), she looked away from the stand. "Well, we've seen your stand, Hisao, but I don't think I can stand talking to this girl any longer. Let's go find Rin."

I'd almost forgotten about Rin. As much as I'd wanted to avoid visiting my class stand, my feet were planted hard on the ground in front of it. They felt heavy. I wanted to stay. "Yeah," I said. It sounded like defeat. I hoped neither of them could hear it in my voice. "We probably should."

Miki nodded. "See you later then, Emi."

Emi waved with the back of her hand. "Catch you later. You still good for that movie tomorrow?"

"My room, five thirty?"

Emi nodded, and started walking away. I stepped backwards to follow, but still kept my eyes locked on Miki. "I'll see you later," I said.

She shook her head. "No you won't."

I stopped. "I'm sorry?"

"You're not going anywhere. I said goodbye to Emi, not you." She looked around the inside of the booth as if she expected something about it to have changed. It was still the same as when Emi and I had walked up to it. "You see anybody else around here? Expect me to run this thing by myself? I sure as Hell don't. Get your ass behind the counter."

I groaned, and I didn't care who heard it. Emi laughed behind me. "I'll tell Rin you said hi," she said.

When Emi said we were leaving I thought I would have done anything to stay. Miki was easy to talk to. She was pretty, too. The men's uniform didn't do her justice. As I began stepping around the counter, I knew I'd thought wrong. Every muscle in my body felt like failing. Why were my arms sore? I'd been running, not lifting weights. I'd have done anything to stay except work. "Thanks," I said. "Do that."

Miki set me up by the cooker. She didn't need two hands to interact with customers, but pouring hot soup could get dangerous. She'd attract more customers anyway. Maybe that's why she decided not to wear the school uniform. "Have you really been working this place all by yourself?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Aren't there more people scheduled?"

She laughed, and joined me over by the cooker. The festival was crowded, but our booth wasn't getting a lot of business, even with Miki running the counter. Either the sign really was too jarring, or it had been a bad decision to set up another soup booth. "Molly's scheduled to be working now. She left to go to the bathroom."

Emi and I hadn't been talking to Miki long, but from the way she was talking she'd been running the booth solo for some time. "How long ago was that?"

"Forty minutes." She laughed again, and leaned back against the table. Miki was beautiful when she stood straight, but she slouched every chance she got. Her posture was pitiful. "She probably got lost at a festival booth or five. Lazy fuck."

The jab didn't sound like the compliment it would have had it been aimed at Emi. "I'm sorry."

"You got nothing to apologize for. This one's on Molly." She sighed, and tilted her head back. "It hasn't been so bad, really. I got a rush of people maybe every ten minutes, but we're not making a whole lot of bank here. It's been nice and quiet."

She probably could have relaxed anywhere. Quiet wasn't the word I would have used to describe the festival. The noise could have been heard from every corner of campus. At least our stall wasn't busy. It meant less work for me, and more time to chat. "So you're catching a movie?"

"With Emi? Yeah. Hitting the theater in town tomorrow night. You have a chance to check out town yet?"

"Not really." I was still getting used to the school. Everything was so different there. The town would have been too much.

"You should have Emi take you around then. She's a good guide, too."

"Maybe I will. Did she show you around when you first got here?"

Miki nodded. "When I enrolled I joined the track team. She took me by the hand and showed me the ropes. Got me set up and all. It's a rough change, first starting here. Still is."

I'd been at Yamaku for days, but it still felt like everything I knew about it had come from somebody else's experience. It was like reading an advertisement. It tells you what the place is, shows you some pictures, and claims an easy transition. I lived there now. I still felt like I'd never actually set foot on campus. If Miki was any indication, it didn't seem that was going to change any time soon. "She didn't tell me you guys were close."

Laughing, Miki scratched her head, and then sunk even deeper onto the counter. She was leaning so far back with her elbows resting on its surface that her wrists were nearly cradled in her armpits. Her right hand fell limp on the side of her chest. It was tough not to notice. "We're not close," she said, "we're tight." I nodded as if I understood the difference. "I mean, we're not BFF or anything, but we get each other. I can't say that about most of the other students around here. We hang from time to time. Do girly shit. It's fun."

After hearing them swear each other out, it was tough to picture them painting nails. Did they bark while they were watching chick flicks, too? I didn't have time to mull it over. A group of students lined up at our booth. There were five of them, and they looked like they came from another school in town. Miki chatted them up while I poured the soup. It would have taken her five trips. I could do it in two.

While I was pouring the fourth bowl, I noticed Miki's notebook on the table. It was open, and I could see a chart that I remembered from our science class. It didn't look straight, and the handwriting on the page was God-awful. I couldn't read a word of it. If she was so terrible writing with her right hand, why didn't she type her notes?

The chart wasn't the only drawing on the page. The margins were covered in scribbles. They were mostly random lines and squiggles, but one of them caught my attention and wouldn't let go. It looked like a cylinder of some sort, and it seemed to be her only attempt at actually drawing anything. That wasn't what was special about it. Everything on the page was scribbled in blue ink. The cylinder was red. I thought she didn't like red. She'd gone so far as to try changing our class's sign because she didn't like the colors.

After handing over the last bowl of soup and waving the customers off, Miki and I fell back into our spots. It was almost like we hadn't left. "Studying for Muto's practice exam?" I asked, gesturing to her notebook.

Her eyes widened slightly. I could see she was surprised, but she laughed to hide it. It didn't seem strange to me that a student would be studying for a test while working a festival booth, and I wondered if she was kicking herself because I'd caught her in the act or because I'd seen her notebook. She was probably just embarrassed about her handwriting. "Yeah." She walked over and closed her notebook. Then she put it under the table, next to her bag. "Can't believe he scheduled something so close to the festival. That's the problem with science teachers, you know? They're so caught up in their equations and stuff that they forget about people."

I didn't know about that. I loved science. It was one of my best subjects. Still, the scheduling seemed negligent. Muto didn't seem like the kind of teacher who would go out of his way to screw a class over. He should have known better. "It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Everything always piles on at once." Love confessions, heart attacks, the hospital, a school for cripples, morning runs, a festival, and a science test. The weight was crushing. "There's still time, though. The test isn't for another few days. If you've started now you'll be fine."

"Yeah," she said, muted. I'd heard the tone from her before. It was the same she'd used as I walked out of the art room. "Sure."

It wasn't confidence, and it wasn't her standard devil may care style. I wanted to ask her about it. She started telling me about Taro's girlfriend before I could. We spent the next fifteen minutes talking about Misha's hair and how Natsume had tried out for pole-vaulting. None of it mattered to either of us. It was one of the best conversations I'd had.

Miki didn't chew Molly out when she returned. Molly looked like she'd expected it, and the front of her uniform had a food stain on it. She'd been ditching. Miki just shrugged, and nodded. Then she turned to me. "Looks like you've been paroled, sport."

I pushed myself off of the table, but my feet were planted again. Working with Miki wasn't so bad. I wanted to stay. Could I make up my mind about anything? "Sure you don't need me here?"

"Only takes two to run a soup stand," she said. "Besides, you leave now you still might be able to catch Rin."

That was right. I still hadn't seen her mural. "Good call." I walked around the booth and back out in front of the counter. Molly took my spot. She apologized, and thanked me for covering her while she was gone. I almost thanked her instead. She deserved it. I gave Miki a last wave before I left. "See you later."

She smiled. "Yeah," she said. She was standing up straight. She needed to do that more often. "I'll make sure you do."

I couldn't get a pin on Miki. She seemed like two different people at the drop of a hat. One moment she didn't care about anything. Assigned to hammer in nails with one hand? No problem. Run a festival stand by herself? Fuck it, let's party. But take a look at her science notes? She was spineless. I refused to believe a practice test would have her tucking her tail between her legs. There was something more.

That didn't matter. At least not right then. I'd been sore as Hell, and she'd still managed to make working the booth fun. And she said she'd make sure I saw her again. I had a new start. It wasn't a good one, but it was fresh. My old friends were gone. It sucked, but I needed to accept that. I needed new friends, now. I had Misha, Shizune, Emi, and Rin. Maybe I wanted a friend like Miki, too. I smiled.

I was still grinning long after I'd left the campus commons.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Starless**

I didn't remember when I first saw a star, but I remembered when I realized I loved them. It was in the hospital. My room had a window, but I couldn't see much out of it. There were a few buildings to look at during the day, and a highway stretching off into the distance, but my bed was too far away to get a decent view of the sky at night. It didn't matter. The city lights and highway street lamps drown out the stars anyway. The world outside my room was wide and open, and there was nothing worth looking at.

It was the stars in my room that I fell in love with. They were glow in the dark stickers stuck to the ceiling in a random mishmash of clusters and bands. Every night after sunset, when the light in the room went dark, they glowed green for an hour or two before fading. I spent the first few nights wondering what glow in the dark star stickers were doing on the ceiling of a room in the cardiology department. I ended up deciding that my room had belonged to the children's ward before the departments switched locations. I didn't want to think much on the alternative—that someone younger than me had been confined to the same room with a crippled heart of his own.

After I stopped questioning why they were there, I got used to having them around. Pretty soon I knew them better than the actual stars. Their placement was random, but I organized them into my own set of constellations. Somebody else had stuck them up there, but not long after I'd inherited the room I'd made the stars my own. Everybody who walked into the room could look up and see the stickers, but only I could trace the patterns. I was the only person in the world who could look up at that ceiling and point out the constellation Iwanako. Only I could watch it burn bright in phosphorescent brilliance. And I was the only one who could do nothing but watch as it faded into nothing.

When I was discharged, I bought a book on stars. It had a whole chapter on constellations. I tried finding them myself. Every night I'd step out and search the sky, but I never saw more than a few stars sprinkled here and there. There was still too much light. Every so often I'd shut my eyes. I could still remember how the green stars had been arranged, and how the cars passing on the highway outside of my room sounded like the ocean. The hospital had been a prison. When I left I was free, and under the real sky. I missed my stars the most.

"Nakai? Hello?"

I looked up at the voice and cringed. It was Mutou, and I was in the middle of his class. I'd spent months letting my mind wander in the hospital. My body had been stuck in the bed, but my thoughts were free to roam. It was the only escape I'd had. My heart attack took a toll on my body, but I was only recently realizing how much damage it had done to everything else. I was still just as smart as I had been before the incident. Hell, I was smarter. But I was scattered. After letting my mind run loose, it was tough reeling it back in. Even in class. "Huh? What?"

"Egad!" He said, looking around the class as if he'd just discovered the cure for cancer but couldn't remember what chemicals he'd mixed to get it. "You've contracted some kind of amnesia! Someone get the nurse!"

Some of the class laughed. Misha and Taro roared. Most just watched. I glanced around. Takashi was smiling, but I doubted it was at Mutou's joke. Shizune looked like she would have scolded me then and there, if given the chance. Miki just looked out of the window. It didn't seem like she was paying attention, either. "Sorry, sir," I said.

"Won't happen again, right?"

"No, sir."

"Well, lovely to hear!" He clasped his hands together, and smiled. I couldn't remember seeing him with so much energy. "I'd hate to have my star pupil slacking off, after all."

Mutou went back to his lesson. He was talking about balancing equations, and the bell rang before he'd finished going over his second example question (but not before I'd come up with the answers). As the class packed to leave—or, as in Hanako's case, had already bolted for the door—he halfheartedly said something about finishing the problem next session. He'd probably been teaching long enough to know that the students clocked out the moment class ended, and I doubted if he really believed more than a few of them would give the question a second look. He looked defeated, like a prizefighter watching his opponent's arm lifted after the final bell, but then he looked at me, and his face brightened. "Nakai, may I have a word with you?"

"Uh, sure." Was he calling me out for daydreaming? He had every right to. It wasn't like me to doze off like that. At least, it hadn't been. It had been happening more and more often. Never in Mutuo's class, but it was becoming a habit. Was he trying to kill that problem before it became routine? Miki hadn't been paying attention, either. Why me, if not her, too? "Am I in trouble?"

"Beg your pardon?" He thought for a moment as the last student left the room, then shook his head. "Oh, that!" he said, laughing. "No, you're not in any sort of trouble. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions."

"What kind of questions?"

"Nothing terrible." He reached for the desk next to me, and pulled it closer. Then he sat. It was odd seeing him sitting in a student's desk, but something about it felt right. He was too old for it, and his suit wasn't anything like the student uniform. It was his smile that made it work. I'd only known him for a few short weeks, but I'd never seen him wear that smile. I doubted I would again. It was the same smile my grandmother had worn when my cousin was born, and the one my father gave when he took me to my first football game. Nostalgia. Mutuo had loved being a student. Maybe more than he loved being a teacher. "I was wondering," he said, after a long pause, "what your plans for after graduation are." He shrugged, as if he'd just asked me the weather. "University?"

"I can't really see a reason not to go."

"Given any thought to what you'll study?"

"I figure I'll come up with something when I get there."

Mutuo laughed. "Take things as they come, eh?" The nostalgic smile grew wider. "I wouldn't recommend that," he said. "Then again, that's how I did things. Sort of."

He went off on a tangent about his university days. It didn't seem like it was what he had wanted to talk to me about, but he looked happy to tell the story. In a way, it felt like an honor. How many students did he open up to? Probably not many. He was too excited by the telling for it to have been routine. As humbling as the experience was, though, I could see where Miki had been coming from with her distaste of science teachers. Mutuo was rambling. It was almost as if he were caught up in his own little world. Confined to his own little room. Did it have star stickers on its ceiling, too? Almost as if realizing my mind was wandering again, he looked up, and then back at me. "Anyway, that's not important right now. I want to talk about your future, not my past. So you're undecided?"

I nodded. I'd always figured that I'd have my entire last year to think about what I wanted to do after I graduated. After my attack, I wasn't thinking much beyond the next day.

He clasped his hands together. Sitting in the student's desk, he looked like he was engrossed in a lecture—except he was focused on me. It was unnerving, but I felt important. Like everything I said mattered. To him, it did. "Have you ever thought about being a teacher?"

It was definitely a conversation he hadn't had with students before me. A teacher? He hadn't known me long. Was knowing whether or not I'd be a good teacher something he could see within a day or two, or was it something he could just smell, like a drug sniffing dog? "A teacher?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"It was just a question," he said. He sat back in the chair. I was more confused than I'd been before. "Actually," he continued, "it goes along with my second question."

When he didn't ask straight away, I prodded. "What's your next question?"

He nodded, and smiled again. It wasn't the nostalgic smile. It was exuberance. "I graded the practice exams."

The one Miki had been studying for at the festival. We'd taken it three days before, and I hadn't studied much. I felt confident, but it was still a test, whether the grade counted or not. "You did?"

"Yes." He bobbed his head back and forth, as if conceding. "Well, not all of them. But I did finish yours. And most of the others."

"When will we get them back?"

"I'll pass them out officially as soon as they're done." He reached into a manila folder and pulled out a packet of paper. "Unofficially, you can see yours now."

The packet he handed me was the practice test. I'd gotten every question right. Even the extra credit. I didn't bother flipping through the pages. Everything I needed to know was on the cover. "Thank you."

Mutuo shrugged. "You enjoy science?"

As a time killer. Something to look into when there was nothing better to do. I hadn't loved science before I started frequenting libraries, and I couldn't honestly say I loved it after. I loved some of the broader concepts—the idea of time, gravity in a free fall, stars—but it would have been a stretch to say I enjoyed the science behind them. It was just something I knew. Like a reflex. "You think I should be a science teacher?"

Mutuo laughed. "I think you should look into it. If that's what you want to do, I mean."

Teaching science didn't sound like it could wreck my heart. At least, no more than any desk job. Mutuo seemed to love what he was doing. He could be scatterbrained at times, but his smile as he handed me my test told me he was getting exactly what he wanted out of life. I didn't know what I wanted out of life. I was even less sure it was the same as what Mutuo wanted. "It seems to me like knowing the science isn't the same as being able to teach it."

"That's right," Mutuo said, drawing back. He looked nervous. "And that's actually why I asked you to stay late."

"Your second question?"

He nodded. "I've been teaching for some time, and I like to think I'm pretty good at it. I keep my office door open, I give extra help when it's called for, and I genuinely care about all of you. Unfortunately, test scores don't always reflect that."

I looked down at my packet. Everything right, plus change. "Were the scores bad?"

"They were about what I'd expect." He leaned back into his chair. "So far they've been better than I expected, really. At least, overall. I find it so exciting," he continued, smile practically dripping off his face, "watching you students learn these equations for the first time. It's like exploration. Some of the equations themselves have been around for ages, but that doesn't make watching you discover them any less awe inspiring."

I cocked my head. "Overall?"

Mutuo furrowed his brow for a moment, as if struggling to follow. "Oh, right!" he said, realizing he'd gone off on another tangent. "Overall the test scores were better than expected. But there's always a curve." His smile faded. "And then sometimes there are outliers. I had two this time."

I assumed I was one, and as I was the only one he was congratulating, that the other was on the low end of scores. "You want me to help tutor?"

"Quick on your feet, as always!" Mutuo leaned in close enough that I could see the weave of his suit jacket, and patted me on the shoulder. "That's why you're my rising star."

It was hard to even think about declining with him so close. Heaping so much praise. I'd always had trouble saying 'no' in person. Over the phone it was as easy as pushing a few buttons. Looking somebody in the eyes and telling them you wouldn't, though, might have been impossible. Mutuo seemed to see a lot of myself in him. Did he know what kind of position he was putting me in? "I don't think I understand," I said, shaking the thought. Mutuo cared too much for us to scheme about forcing hands. The thought that he would felt like mutiny. "If you've been teaching for so long, what makes you think I can do better on my first try?"

"Teaching doesn't always work that way." He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. Instead, he sat clasped his hands together again. I could see he had tangents running through his mind. "Let's say you're in the lab running an experiment."

I nodded. "Sure."

"You're trying to get a certain reaction. Say a double displacement. You set up your workspace, draw out your hypothesis, put on your safety goggles, gloves, and coat. You're wearing your closed-toed shoes. Everything is set to go." He paused to think, as if pulling the story from memory. Maybe he was. "Except the reaction doesn't happen. You got a single displacement. So you repeat the experiment to make sure you didn't make a mistake the first time. Same results. What do you do?"

Did he know that he was making an offer I couldn't refuse? If the experiment didn't get the results you were looking for, the answer was to try again with something new. When he put it like that—like a scientist—it was hard to ignore. "Alright," I said. "I'll give it a shot."

"That's excellent." He let out a breath, as if shrugging off weights. "I think you'll enjoy it."

I wasn't as sure. Maybe he was right, and teaching was fun. Maybe it was fulfilling, too. I doubted he would have stuck with it if it wasn't. But not like this. Not with him smiling at me like he was. I realized his nostalgia wasn't my friend. He was projecting himself onto me. I'd aced his test, and suddenly he saw me as himself when he was in high school. I could feel myself starting to smile despite the wrenching in my chest. It was an honor, really—but one I wasn't sure I could live up to. "I'll do my best."

The excitement oozed from his face. I was playing right into his hand, and he was eating it up. Was it wrong of me to accept his offer because I assumed it was what he wanted? In the course of a single meeting, I'd cemented my place as a yes-man. He shuffled through his papers again, but didn't hand any to me when he stopped. "You know Ms. Miura, right?"

"Miki?"

He nodded. "Friends?"

The wrenching in my chest turned into a pounding, then moved down into my gut. I knew where this was headed. Couldn't it have been Haruhiko that needed help? Or Lezard, even. I would have taken anybody but Miki. "Yeah."

Mutuo shrugged. "I never saw you two talking in class. Wouldn't have guessed you were close."

"We're not close," I said, shaking my head. What were we? Miki and I were definitely friends, but that still left a wide range. Acquaintances? I hoped we were more than that. Somehow I was sure we were more than just familiar faces. But we definitely weren't close. I didn't know where we fell, and I couldn't begin to imagine how to explain it to somebody else. "We're tight."

Mutuo examined me for a moment as if I were the results of an experiment he didn't quite understand, then nodded. "I see," he said, as if he understood. Maybe his comparison of us wasn't as far off as I'd thought. "Well, that'll make things easy, then. See if you can set up a meeting with her and go over that practice exam a few times. I think it'd really help her out if it came from you."

He made it sound as easy as asking about the time of day. Miki and I may not have been close, but I knew it wouldn't be that simple. Every time I'd offered to lend her help, she shrugged me off. She'd clammed up at the mere mention of her science notes. As soon as she saw me looking at them she hid her book. I might have been unable to say no to Mutuo, but Miki could surely say no to me. Somehow that scared me more than letting Mutuo down. "What exactly was her score on the exam?"

"I can't tell you that," Mutuo said, shuffling the papers. He put them back into his folder. "Student privacy and all. You'll have to ask her yourself."

"You already told me she failed. What's the difference between that and showing me her exam?"

Smiling, Mutuo shook his head. "I never told you she failed," he said. He looked like a game show host who was always one step ahead of the contestant, and relished it. "I just told you she might be looking for a tutor. You assumed the rest."

I was pretty sure he'd already told me more than he was supposed to. It was for a greater good though, right? At least, I was sure that's what he thought. Whether he was right to do so or not, I couldn't argue that he didn't care about his students. I couldn't think of any teacher I'd had before coming to Yamaku who would have done the same. Would I have gone that far? "So you want me to set all of this up myself?"

"Yes. I'll think she'll take to the idea better if you don't mention that it was mine."

"Where am I supposed to start?"

"You'll figure something out," he said. "You are my rising star."

Our meeting went on for another fifteen minutes. With the Miki business out of the way, he went back to talking science. He even gave me a book to read, and suggested that we start a science club. I couldn't say no. I left with a club membership, _A Brief History of Time_, and a mission.

My mind wasn't on any of them. It was on the stars, and the imaginary lines I'd drawn into the ceiling. I'd done that myself. It took the meeting with Mutuo for me to realize that I hadn't done anything on my own since. Whether it was helping with the class booth, running with Emi, or tutoring Miki, just about everything I'd done since charting those constellations had been at somebody else's prodding.

It was overcast when I walked outside. There wouldn't be any stars that night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Polygraph**

Taro's left arm was paralyzed, but that didn't keep him from being the best cook in class. He always ate the school lunch, of course, but in his words the cafeteria's handout wasn't "hardy enough to pass for a midday snack." He always packed a supplement to kick it up to his standard. "I won't settle," he said, grabbing a rice ball and bouncing it in his one good hand. "Not when it comes to school, not when it comes to women, and certainly not when food is on the line." Looking me dead in the eyes, he stuffed the ball in his mouth, and—rice grains tumbling from his lips—smiled the widest smile I'd ever seen.

I ate lunch with Taro, Akio, and Lezard three days a week in the cafeteria. I spent the other three days eating with Emi and Rin on the roof, but there was a gravity to the guys in the lunch room that kept me from rocketing up the stairwells everyday when class ended. They weren't as pretty as Emi or Rin, but they didn't need to be. The three of them were like any friend I'd had before coming to Yamaku. It didn't matter that they were disabled. Hanging out with them felt normal. It felt like something the old me would have done.

Behind Taro and his food stained collar, Miki was waiting in line for her meal. At a glance it seemed normal. At a thousand other schools, a thousand other students were being handed rice balls and curry and waiting to meet their friends at any one of the thousands of tables set up in a thousand cafeterias. She was missing a hand, but that wasn't what broke the illusion. It was the little things that reminded me that everything had changed. You get used to seeing a missing hand pretty quick—at least at a glance. There should be a hand there, but it's gone, and after a week or three it stops registering. It's the little things. The things that should be normal, but aren't. When a kid with one prosthetic leg stumbles and spills his tray, it's not the missing limb you wish you could pry your eyes off of. It's the soup spilled across the linoleum floor he left behind that whispers in your ear. _ You're lying to yourself. This isn't normal. Nothing in your life will ever be normal ever again._

"She's pretty, isn't she?" Akio wasn't looking at me when he spoke. He'd traced my line of sight to the registers, and his grin screamed that he knew I'd been watching Miki. It was the kind of grin a man wears when he thinks he's learned somebody's darkest secret.

I looked back to Miki, and she was pretty. She was resting back against a hand rail—slouched, as usual—holding her tray with her good hand and balancing it with her other wrist. Her shirt was collar up and untucked. Its loose fabric wrinkled in front of her skirt. The wide end of her tie didn't cover the buttons, and the narrow end fell careless in the other direction. At any other school the administration would have thrown a fit. It was always the little things. "Yeah," I said. "I guess she's pretty."

"You should go talk to her," Taro said, taking a break from shoving another rice ball into his mouth. He hadn't even looked, but I knew he knew exactly what Akio and I were talking about. Taro Always Two Steps Ahead. "You haven't been able to keep your eyes off of her all week. Just go tell her you think she's pretty. It's no problem. She's cool like that."

I didn't tell him I was afraid. Not of her being pretty. I could handle that, because that wasn't what mattered. It was the test scores. Rejection. If she were pretty, and I had to tell her I loved her, I wouldn't have been so afraid. If she rejected me over that, I might have had another heart attack, and that would have been the end of it. I'd either be dead, or I'd be in the hospital for so long that by the time I came back nobody would remember. At worst she would have visited for a few weeks and then stopped coming. Either way, I wouldn't actually have had to deal with being turned down. A rejection over tutoring wasn't enough to give me a heart attack. Mutou would think I'd failed. And I'd have to live with it. "It's not like that," I said.

Lezard scoffed, and Akio rolled his eyes. Taro studied me for a moment, then nodded. Always so understanding. "Business then," he said. He picked a piece of candy out of his bag—the kind with the red and yellow wrapper—and shifted it in his fingers as if he were going to tear it open. Then he froze. He passed it off to Lezard. "If you say it isn't about love then it isn't," he continued, "but whatever it is, you need to get it done. You've been staring at her like a sick puppy for days."

People gave Taro a hard time because they thought he was slow. And they were right. Taro never got it right the first time. But they didn't realize that it was never the first time that mattered. It was always the second. The test. And Taro studied. He observed. He didn't have the raw intelligence, but he had the drive. One day, he'd be the smartest man in Japan. "I was actually hoping it would work itself out," I said.

"It never works itself out." Taro grabbed another candy. This one went to Akio. "At least, not for the best."

Lezard was still sucking on his candy when he said, "We're not letting you sit back down here until you do. It's embarrassing."

I turned to Akio, and he nodded. The three wise men had spoken.

Taro handed me a candy of my own, then sent me on my way. Miki had already left through the five-wheelchair-wide double doors. I didn't know where she went for lunch every day. Sometimes I saw her at a table in the cafeteria, but she didn't seem to be on any set schedule. One day with Molly and Ikuno. One with Natsumi and Takashi. Another with some guys from the track team. If I had money to bet, I would have put it all down on her eating with Lezard, Akio, and Taro sometimes when I was with Emi and Rin on the roof, and then spent my winnings betting the other way around. She was all over the place. There was no order to it.

Miki was making her way through the campus commons when I caught up to her. "Miki!"

She turned, the end of her tie fluttering a pill's length from her stomach before flopping back down in its haphazard mess, and smiled. "What's up?" she asked. "Long time no see."

It hadn't been a long time. Less than an hour, really. But being in the same room as somebody wasn't the same as being with them. Iwanako taught me that the hard way. "Yeah, it's been a while." Since the festival. We weren't close, so we didn't talk before the practice exam. After meeting with Mutou, I hadn't wanted to. "Where are you off to?"

She held up her tray, cocking her head and waving her wrist over it like a model displaying a juicer in a late night infomercial. "Lunch," she said, then pointed at the girl's dormitory with her jaw. "Meeting Ritsu in her room. You want to tag?"

Tagging along was the last thing I wanted. I wasn't going to bring up tutoring in front of Ritsu. We'd talk about anything and everything but what we were supposed to. They wouldn't know, so it wouldn't bother them. Ritsu would say something about a watch she wanted. Miki would tell us about that movie she saw with Emi. I'd nod, but I wouldn't really be listening. I'd be thinking about what I was supposed to be asking Miki. About how we used to be able to talk normally, like she and Ritsu were talking, and about how cool that had been. "Thanks, but no," I said. "I was actually hoping to catch just you, but it can wait."

"Oh yeah?" She looked to the girl's dorm, then at me. Then the girl's dorm again. "Nah." Shifting her grip on her tray, she said, "I don't like keeping people waiting. Want to grab a spot out here for lunch? You and me?"

I traced her line of sight to the dorms. Somewhere up there, Ritsu was waiting. "What about your lunch date?"

"Don't worry about it." A light shrug told me she wasn't worrying about it herself. "I'm supposed to have lunch with Ritsu today, but she was supposed to have lunch with me last Thursday. We can call it karma."

What I had to say to her was more important than the latest gossip. It wasn't until Miki led me to a nearby picnic table that I realized I was going to impress some responsibility on her by helping her ditch out on a prior engagement. But the breeze was so warm and so gentle it didn't even rustle her tie, and the sun was beating down on the perfectly trimmed grass of the commons, and the shade of the giant oak with the crooked trunk fell so perfectly over the contours of the table that it begged for somebody to rest under it, and when Miki laid her tray down, waved like that infomercial model for me to sit with her, and smiled, I smiled, too.

"So," she said, using the crook of her left arm and two fingers to open the first of her three cartons of 2% milk. "What can I do for you?"

Just say yes. I'd run it through my mind for the past week. I'd walk up to her and ask, flat out. She'd say yes. The whole conversation would have lasted fifteen seconds, at most. Easy. "I just figured we hadn't talked in a while, so I wanted to see what was up."

"Just me though, huh?" She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. "Not Ritsu?"

I didn't have the guts to ask her straight out, but I hadn't thought the conversation through any other way. I had no idea where to go with it. "Yeah."

She tried to hide a smile, but I could see the corner of her lips turn. When she couldn't hide it herself, she took a sip of milk. By the time she swallowed, it was gone. "I can dig that. A getting to know you kind of thing."

"Something like that, yeah."

Miki smiled again, but this time she didn't bother trying to hide it. If I'd wanted to I could have counted her teeth. "Good," she said. "I'd been hoping to talk to you again. The way you'd just been staring, though, I was starting to think it would never actually happen."

The shade was suddenly freezing. If I could have curled into a ball and died there under the oak, I would have. I was praying for a heart attack. "You saw that?"

Miki didn't answer straight away. Her eyes were glued to my face, and every time I thought her smile had stretched as far as it could, it grew wider. She could see me squirming, and she was relishing it. "No," she finally said. "Taro did."

Of course. Taro The Backstabber. "And he told you."

She nodded, but seemed more interested in the curry she was picking apart. It didn't look very good, but it actually wasn't bad. A bit bland, maybe. "Yeah. Wouldn't have noticed it myself, you know, being oblivious and all, but he catches those kinds of things. Keeps me up on who's got eyes on who. Things like that."

Miki took a bite of her food as if what she was saying had nothing to do with either of us. As if she'd been watching me staring at her for the past week from a distance. Maybe she had been. "I'm sorry."

She laughed through the food in her mouth, and, struggling to swallow, waved me off. "Don't apologize for it," she said. "I'm cool like that." It took her another five seconds to finish swallowing. "So you want to get to know me. Shoot."

I knew I wasn't going to make tutoring my first question. That was alright. The experiment wasn't working out the way I'd run it through my head, but if it doesn't work the first time, try something new. Work up to the reaction. I took a few seconds for curry, then said, "You never told me where you were from."

"Nishanmoote," she said. "On Tanegashima."

Tanegashima was an island off the coast of the southern Kagoshima mainland. I'd begged my parents for years to go watch one of the rocket launches there. We never went. "That's a bit out of the way, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Miki said. "And that's the way I like it."

Her constant staring out of windows and daydreaming started making sense. Yamaku wasn't in the big city, but it was a far cry from being as small a town as Nishanmoote. There were probably more people living in the area than there were on her entire island. If she liked it out of the way, Yamaku wasn't it. "If you're from all the way out in Tanegashima, why did you—"

"Hold on there, Tiger," she said, pointing to my tray. "Your food's going to get cold if you keep talking."

"What?"

"Grab a bite," she said. "Besides, if you ask all the questions I'll never get one in myself. Then you'd get all your kicks, and I'd be left in the cold. That'd be a travesty."

When I started playing along with her get-to-know-you deal, I hadn't thought that she'd want to ask questions, too, but she looked too eager to turn down. "Fair's fair." I took a mouthful of some of the curry. The chef seemed to have added some new spices, but it tasted as bland as it had been before. "Shoot."

"What do you miss most? From your old life."

I'd chewed the curry, but Miki's question kept me from swallowing. It sat in my mouth as a mushy, tasteless lump. The little things were the constant reminder of change. Once in a while, though, something big would strike like a comet carving a mile-wide crater. 'Old life'. Like the one I was living at Yamaku wasn't the same. Where did the 'old life' end? The heart attack? My first day at Yamaku? Forget finding an answer. I barely even knew the question. "The stars," I said, even though I didn't know which life they belonged to. I wasn't sure they belonged to either.

"Nice view of the sky at home?"

"No." It sounded absurd, and I could tell from the look on Miki's face that she hadn't followed. If she were still that infomercial model, the juicer had broken down mid demonstration. "Too much light pollution. There's not much to look at." After I took a sip of my own milk, she still looked perplexed. I didn't want to explain my hospital stay, so I decided to keep her talking. "I'll bet you get a pretty good view back at your place though."

She took the subject change in stride. Smiled, even. "Best in Japan," she said. "Hell, it's all anybody ever talks about down there. I don't know. Never put much stock in all that myself."

It was my turn to ask a question, but I felt we were on a good track, and I wasn't ready to ask the big one. Never ruin a good thing. "Why not?"

She shrugged. "Because who cares?" She moved to clasp her fingers together, and only looked a little surprised when her hand fell on her wrist. Nothing to make any big deal about. It was only a little thing. "Everyone's always talking about the stars and how they're the future and all that shit. My dad does that, you know? The star stuff. Used to come home every night and talk about it, like anybody gave a damn. Like it was the most important thing in the world. Like they weren't so far away nobody could ever actually touch them. I just hate how people get so lost in it." Her thumb was rubbing against her wrist. The bandage was loose enough that it left a trail. "Like Mutou."

It was almost too perfect. Talk about Mutou. From there it was only a hop to studying. "You don't like Mutou?"

Laughing, Miki shook her head. "I like him just fine. He's just spacy." She tried to take a sip, but laughed before her carton reached her mouth. "And I mean, it suits him," she said, cupping her hand back around her wrist. With her holding it up, it was hard to look away. "I just wish he'd come back down a little more often. Seem more like a real person."

"He might be a little more in touch with what's going on here than you think." So close. I couldn't tell her about Mutou's proposition, but we were skirting the edges. Miki's bandage shifted as she twisted her wrist in her hand. It was frayed near the base.

"Says his rising star," Miki said, deadpan. Her hand shifted, blocking her stump from view. When I looked up, her eyes tore into mine. How long had she been watching me watch her wrist?

"Yeah," I said. I couldn't stand up to her gaze, so I looked away. Did people stare at my heart when I wasn't watching? I realized a second too late that when I lowered my head, my eyes went straight to her stump.

"Your question," she said, just as flat as before.

I'd blown it. Our simple 'get to know you' had been ripped apart like a juicer tears an orange into pulp. All because I couldn't look away. Tutoring was out of the question. I knew what she was expecting me to ask, but I didn't want to. Her lips had flat-lined. I couldn't read anything out of her. Except for her eyes. They were dark. Overpowering. She didn't open her mouth, but she didn't need to. Her eyes spoke for her. _Go ahead, motherfucker. Pull the trigger and ask._ "How did you lose your hand?"

Her eyes didn't move. I wasn't stupid enough to look away again. Resting her wrist on the table, she pushed her tray away with her right hand. Her plate wasn't even half empty, but it was clear we were done eating. "What's it matter?"

She wasn't even trying to hide the stump anymore. It lay flat on the picnic bench between us. I couldn't see anything else in my peripherals. What was I supposed to say with her missing hand spread out all over the table? "It's part of who you are."

Finally, she looked away. "No it isn't."

I hated my heart. Every pump it forgot reminded me of how weak I was. The rest of me worked fine, but my heart beat to the wrong cadence. Still, it was my heart. One day, I'd met a girl under the branches of a barren tree, and everything changed. "Whatever happened brought you here. That's important."

Her eyes met mine again, but the power glare was gone, and she licked her lips. "You really think so?"

"Yes."

It was barely a twitch, but she broke eye contact. A short downward glance. There was only one thing on the table with enough gravity to pull her sight from mine. Before she could have blinked, she focused back on me. "Then it was an accident."

Any malice her eyes had shown before was gone. Somehow that was worse. I wanted her to glare again. I wanted anything but the nothing I was seeing. "Look, I'm sorry if I—"

"No," she said, shaking her head. For what felt like the first time in months, she dropped her head. She wasn't looking at me. She wasn't even looking at her wrist. It looked like she was staring into her lap. "It's my question now." After the short respite, she looked back. It was the nothing all over again. "Why did you really want to talk to me?"

I hadn't told anybody about my meeting with Mutou. Taro couldn't have known. She'd figured it out on her own. "What do you mean?"

"I mean why are we really sitting here?" Miki leaned forward, raising her hand to hold up her chin. It looked like the move was more out of fatigue than curiosity. "We talked before, and it was cool. Then nothing. Then you stare. You don't pussyfoot around for a week over a meet and greet. What do you want?"

I wanted her to show some expression. Rage. Disappointment. Even pain. It would have hurt less than what she was giving. I wanted to forget my meeting with Mutou had ever happened. That he put so much reverence in me. That he cared. I wanted something that I could control. I wanted a working heart. "I wanted to know if you would like to study with me sometime."

She didn't move. "That's it?"

It sounded so stupid when I actually said it out loud. So simple. It was supposed to be my heart that was weak. Why had it made me such a coward? "Yes."

There was no way to tell whether she believed me or not. It probably didn't matter. But she laughed. It wasn't the bouncy, devil-may-care laugh she was known for. It was a cocktail of disbelief and awe. "No," she said. "I don't think so."

My heart skipped a beat. Then another. Then it fell back into rhythm. Not even close to a heart attack. I wasn't sure what to say, so I said nothing.

Just when I thought she was about to leave, she dropped her hand. She was still leaning forward. Closer, even. "Why didn't you just ask me?"

"If I had, would you have said yes?"

For the first time, the nothing in her eyes gave way. It was surprise that filled the gaping hole, and she fell silent. For a moment, I knew she was just as unsure of what to say as I had been. After a long pause, she sighed. "No."

I lifted my hand, as if showing her she'd answered her own question. In fact, she had.

Her lips moved. I didn't need to be a master lip reader to tell that what she was mouthing would have gotten her into a lot of trouble. Her head turned to her lap, then to her wrist, and finally back to me. "Did it really mean that much to you?"

"Yeah."

She sighed again—longer this time, and deeper—then loosened her tie. It hadn't looked tight enough to have been constricting in the first place, but she pulled it until the knot hung just over her chest. We sat for a full minute in silence. I had nothing more to say, so I waited. "Alright," she finally relented. "If you're so dead set on this study thing, we can do it. But it's going to be conditional."

There was no way I'd heard her right. After butchering the conversation so badly, she could have left it at 'no' and been finished with it. I didn't know why she was stepping back on her answer, but I didn't care. "Shoot."

"It was all a bullshit excuse," she said, "but I kind of liked this whole 'getting to know you' thing. I get three questions. You answer them all and we'll hit the books, but if I don't like your answers, we're done, and if I think you're lying, I'll walk."

I was desperate for anything to grab onto, and her terms were as good as I was going to get. "Shoot."

Miki nodded, and clasped her hand over her wrist as she had before. She wasn't an infomercial model anymore. She was an interrogator. "Was this study thing your idea?"

She wanted an honest answer, but even if I was honest, she'd juice the tutoring plan if she didn't like what she heard. I didn't think I could give her an answer she would like. She probably knew that. It came down to a matter of degrees—how much wouldn't she like what I told her. Mutou asked me not to tell her it was his idea, and from what she'd said about him earlier, if I told her straight that it had come from him she'd likely walk. But he also never told me what she actually got on the test. It was a grey area, but enough to give the idea without actually telling me. Thank you, Mutou. "No."

Miki nodded. If it wasn't my idea, she had to have known where it came from. It was unspoken, but Mutou may as well have been sitting there with us. Right next to her missing hand. "Do you actually care about how I do? My grades, I mean." She drummed her fingers against her wrist. The pitter-patter of her skin striking her stump nearly matched my pulse. "Any other interest you have in this aside, if we do this study deal, and I come out of it and flat out, fall-on-my-ass fail, would that mean anything to you?"

I started saying 'yes'. I wanted to say 'yes'. The only word running through my mind was 'yes'. But if I took Mutou out of the equation, it didn't balance. I wanted to call Miki my friend, but I still barely knew her. It would have been awesome if she got top marks, but if I had heard she aced Mutou's exam I wouldn't have thought twice about it. If she failed, I'd feel bad. I'd tell her how sorry I was, and how she was sure to do better next time. How we could fix it. But even then, it wouldn't mean anything to me. The tutoring idea was all about me and Mutou. Miki might as well have been Molly as far as the plan was concerned. Hell, she might as well have been a rock. "No."

For a long time, Miki didn't move. She'd stopped drumming the moment I started speaking. The silence was worse. There's no way to gauge silence, just as you can't measure nothing. Miki always seemed so relaxed. She waved her emotions around like a flag. Sitting with her under the oak, I couldn't read her. It wasn't that I couldn't understand. It was that there wasn't anything to understand in the first place.

When she stirred, I started breathing again. I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath. "Ok then," she said. "Let me know when you want to start."

"That's it?"

"Yeah," she said. "That's it."

I couldn't believe her. It didn't make any sense. If I'd asked her quick and painless, she would have said no. But she agreed to it after I stared gutless for a week, then ran her in circles and pretty much lied to her about what was going on. "I thought you said you were asking three questions."

"I did. I'm holding onto the third for later."

"When?"

She shrugged. After looking at the clock on her phone, she grabbed her tray and stood. "We're done here for now. I think I'll catch Ritsu for the rest of lunch after all."

I saw her off, then looked down at my plate. I hadn't eaten much, but I wasn't hungry anymore. The thought of eating made my stomach twist.

"Hey, Hisao!" Miki had turned back around, and she was smiling. It was a weak smile, but earnest. "Thanks for being honest," she said. "I like you when you're honest."

I watched her walk off before I picked up my own tray. If I wasn't going to be eating, there was no sense in wasting. Taro could get the job done. I made my way back through the commons, and stopped before going back into the cafeteria. My talk with Miki hadn't gone as planed, but it was done. I could relax. It really was a beautiful day. Out from under the oak, I had to cover my eyes to keep the sun from blinding me. The breeze was warm as it weaved through my hair, and it was fragrant—lilacs and gardenias. Birds chirped from the branches of the trees we'd been sitting under.

When I looked down, my smile faded. I wasn't standing on a staircase. I was standing on a wheelchair ramp. The railing I was leaning against wasn't just a handrail. It was designed to help people get around when they couldn't stand on their own power. It wasn't until then that I realized that when Miki left, she'd walked off in the opposite direction of the dorms. It was always the little things.


End file.
